Rest Assured
by TheMacUnleashed
Summary: Sleep deprivation has some interesting effects on Owen. Jack isn't pleased that he didn't know about them. For the prompt "seizures;" rated for swearing.


Owen Harper had woken up to find himself in a lot of fucked-up situations before. There was that Christmas party a few years back, the time he'd woken up to find himself in an empty hotel room in Swansea when he could clearly remember starting the night out in Cardiff, and, oh yeah, that morning when his bride-to-be hadn't known who he, or she, was.

Still, waking up lying on a cold, damp floor with piss in his pants, and an irate-looking boss bent over him was definitely one of the odder times.

He blinked several times to make sure that this wasn't some weirdly lucid dream. When he was sure that it wasn't, he focused on Jack. "Morning."

His tongue felt dry and thick, like he'd spent a few hours too many down at the pub, and the word ended up slightly garbled. That didn't seem to affect Jack's understanding. "Technically. It's about thirty past midnight."

Oh. "Did I fall out of bed?"

"I doubt it. There isn't much in ways of beds around here." Jack raised an eyebrow, not looking particularly impressed. Well, the bastard had probably had his fair share of morning-afters too; he shouldn't be complaining.

Owen rolled over onto his side, supporting himself on his left arm. A wave of nausea swept over him, and he closed his eyes, breathing deeply. Vomiting onto the shoes of his new boss wouldn't make for a good impression.

"Need a hand?" Jack didn't wait for an answer; just gripped his hand and pulled him to his feet. "What do you remember?"

"I-" The world spun around him and he took a clumsy step backwards. Bracing his hands against his thighs, he closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Remember.

He felt Jack's hand on his shoulder, bracing him. "Ten minutes ago. Tell me what happened then."

"Weevil." Owen slowly straightened up. "We were out after a weevil." It was his first time going after one of the sharp-toothed bastards that he'd seen locked beneath the Hub's main room. There had been a sudden upswings in sightings, something Jack had said happened every summer.

"Right. What next?" Jack kept his hand in place as Owen rubbed a palm against his eyes.

"We got it in here-" _here_ being an old, abandoned building; Owen hadn't bothered to glance at the sign before breaking the lock, "-cornered it, and then-"

And then he couldn't remember. He shrugged off Jack's hand, suddenly all too aware of the contact. "I fell asleep on the job?"

"Here's a hint, Doctor: if you fell asleep on the job, I probably wouldn't be helping you up. Packing your bags for you, maybe." Jack studied him closely, gauging his reactions. "Unless you had a good excuse, which I'm going to guess you wouldn't."

"Fine. I didn't fall asleep. And I'm guessing that the weevil didn't attack me, since I've still got all my guts in me." He glanced down automatically as he spoke, checking the truth of his words. "Where is it?" They had been backing the thing into a corner; escape would have been pretty damn hard for it at that point.

"It got away. I do have a heart. I'm not going to go after a weevil if my team's only surgeon is having a seizure on the floor." Jack raised his eyebrow. "Which, of course, brings us to our next point: how long have you been having seizures, and how often?"

_Oh_. Christ. That would explain it. "I don't. They aren't frequent. Haven't had one since I was a kid."

"So you've had seizures before? I suppose you didn't think that was worth mentioning." Jack started walking briskly across the building, not looking behind him. Owen stumbled after him, his muscles sore. That was the same way it had been before.

"Twice. Both when I was younger." Ten and fourteen.

"They weren't in your files."

"I didn't go to a doctor."

Jack finally halted at the broken-down door and turned around, waiting for Owen to catch up. His coat billowed out in the wind, and he looked pissed. "Why not? You're a doctor; I get the idea that you weren't that thick as a kid so that you'd think that nothing was wrong when you started going into spasms on the floor. You never thought it was worth telling mum about?"

"She was there." He leaned against the wall and glared back, not caring how fucking unprofessional it was. His head felt like hell, he could feel the drying urine in his pants (and that was just fucking embarrassing; why the hell did that have to be a side effect, as if everything else wasn't bad enough?) and he hadn't had a full night of sleep for something like a week, which could explain the damned seizure. That could be a cause, he remembered. Sleep deprivation.

And his last statement had caught Jack off-guard, he could tell. They hadn't exactly talked about Owen's past. For that, the subject had barely come up at all, and he didn't seem to know what to say to it.

He nodded, and now Owen could see something else in his eyes even in the dim light cast by their torches. Understanding; that and fucking sympathy. He hated both.

Without speaking, Jack turned and briskly walked on back to their ride. Owen followed him out, choosing his words carefully. "Look, it doesn't happen often. The only times -it's when I don't sleep, and that can happen to anyone."

"And why haven't you been sleeping?" Jack stopped at the vehicle, unlocking its doors. His back was to Owen, but his curiosity was apparent in his voice.

"Because every time I do I see my dead fiancee with bugs crawling out of her brain, and fucking pills don't fucking help, and maybe because it isn't a fucking choice?" He regretted the words as soon as they were out of his mouth. It was an honest statement, a personal one, and that was the problem. He should have lied.

"Makes sense." Jack emerged, a pair of trousers in one hand, a bottle of water in the other. Tossing them at him he said, "Put those on, and drink this up. You'll feel better."

Owen grabbed them from his hands. "Any reason you're carrying those-" he nodded to the trousers "-around in the back of that?"

"For emergencies." Jack watched him, arms crossed, until he finally seemed to get the meaning of Owen's glare and turned around. "You realize how risky that was in there? If you'd been alone, you would be dead."

"Yeah, I realize it. Guess it's a good thing I wasn't." The trousers fit him well. He tossed the soiled pair into a heap; no use having them stink up the ride back, and then took a deep swig from the water bottle. He was thirsty, worse than he'd been the other times, and he drained the bottle entirely, then tossed it in a heap with his jeans. Screw recycling.

"If this happens again, I can't keep you." Jack spared no words, walking around to the driver's side. "I'll give you a chance -I shouldn't, but I will anyway; it won't be the first stupid decision I've made- but once more time like this, and you're retconned out. I can't risk you hurting someone else, not to mention yourself."

"Fine." He clambered into his seat. It was a fair deal, and he probably should have said thanks, or something; it was bloody generous of Jack to give him that. He didn't, though. Not his way of doing things.

"And don't come back until you've gotten some sleep. I'll drop you off at your flat now."

"Fine." Owen yawned and leaned back into his seat. The headache was lessening now. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply; with any luck, it'd be completely gone before they got back...

He was asleep when Jack pulled up to the building; only half-awake when he said, "We're here," and helped him out.

"Can make it on my own," he snapped, sluggishly trying to bat off his hands. "Don't need help."

"Yes, you do." Jack manhandled him in. "Third floor?"

"Yeah."

When they had arrived at his rooms, Jack asked, "Key?"

Owen reached into his jacket's pockets, tried to find it, but his fingers were clumsy and heavy. Jack pushed his hand aside and fished it out, then unlocked the door. "Come on. Just a bit further." He guided him to the bed, into which Owen collapsed gratefully.

"Take the day off," Jack said, his voice sounding from the same far-off plane where the clinking of his keys being dropped came from. "I'll see you later."

"Later," he muttered, and then, with great effort, opened his eyes. "The water..."

"Yes?"

"Was 'ere... somethin'..."

"Get some sleep," Jack repeated, and he fell silent, and he was no longer awake by the time Jack was walking out of the apartment.


End file.
